


Alexithymia

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Not Suitable/Safe For Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1649186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexithymia: Noun. The reason Bartholomew thinks he is in love.</p>
<p>Castiel leads and Bartholomew follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alexithymia

“Learn,” Castiel tells the angels.

_I will_ , Bartholomew thinks.  _I will learn from the best_.

Castiel leads and Bartholomew follows.

—

Bartholomew follows Castiel straight into the middle of a war. It’s there, holed up in the trenches, tired and filthy and aching, facing what seem like impossible odds, that Castiel first speaks to Bartholomew like he’s something other than a soldier.

“I have doubts,” Castiel says.

Bartholomew thinks of the uncertainty of the situation, runs the calculations, every possible scenario, through his mind lightning-quick. He calculates their chance of survival and finds himself less than pleased with the result. He feels blood on his skin, sweat in his clothes, dirt beneath his fingernails, bruises and breaks that he has not been able to spare the time or the energy to heal.

He echoes, “Yes, as do I.”

Then Bartholomew looks at Castiel, thinks of the bodies already strewn across the battlefield, wings burnt into heaven’s holy ground, marks of Castiel’s brilliance, his victories. Looks at the weapon still in Castiel’s hands, the grace still burning behind his eyes, wheels still turning. Compelling evidence, even in the face of his own rebuttals.

“But I also have faith.”

Castiel smiles, then, thinly, grimly. “I have a plan.”

—

They emerge victorious, Castiel thanking Bartholomew for his loyalty, his faith, in the same breath he laments the loss of so many of their brothers and sisters. Bartholomew’s blade is heavy in his hand; Castiel’s words are heavy on his heart. This is the gravity of remorse, he thinks.

But they’re still there and they’re victorious, and Bartholomew finds that preferable to the alternative. As the slow seep of his grace repairs cloth and flesh alike, something like warmth returning to his borrowed limbs, he thinks he is very, very happy not to be dead.

“It’s all thanks to you, Castiel,” he says, smiling.

Castiel smiles back.

—

Castiel’s heaven is a Tuesday afternoon that once may have been beautiful, but now scorch marks mar the pristine grass even though the bodies of the fallen have long since been removed. Castiel pulls Bartholomew from the sunlight and into the shade of the surrounding trees, and that’s when he notices Castiel’s unsteady feet, his ragged breaths. Bartholomew is back to pristine perfection, but Castiel is a mess of blood and sweat and grime that still hasn’t disappeared. He lets Castiel lean against him as he presses two fingers to his forehead, replacing his damaged garments, healing his wounds, but when he finishes, Castiel still looks unwell. Bartholomew frowns.

“What do you need me to do?” Bartholomew asks. He’s no stranger to tales of angels falling or being imprisoned or up and vanishing, but angels  _dying_  in any way other than quickly and violently is still a novel concept. He wonders, vaguely, if that’s what’s happening to Castiel. He isn’t sure how he feels about that, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t like it.

“ _Learn_ ,” Castiel says with a sigh, and before Bartholomew has time to voice his argument in his own defense, Castiel takes his face in his hands and kisses him gently. There’s a feeling like static electricity where their mouths touch, pleasant and tingling, and as Castiel pins Bartholomew against a tree, their torsos flush, hands on his arms, mouth on his neck, the foreign sensation spreads across his borrowed skin, plays at the edges of his grace. There’s something radiating off Castiel that Bartholomew can’t quite explain, heat that pulses from him in desperate waves; he lets it wash over him, loses himself in it as Castiel moves against him, bringing everything to a fever pitch.

Castiel comes with a soft gasp, clinging to Bartholomew like he’s an anchor, a cornerstone. His expression is like nothing Bartholomew has ever seen, face a portrait of grace and bliss and adoration all mixed into one, and Bartholomew wonders if this is what being worshipped feels like. Castiel is sweating and shaking and almost  _human_ , but above all else, he is beautiful beyond compare.

Bartholomew wants that, what Castiel has.

He sweeps Castiel’s legs out from under him in one smooth motion, doesn’t even register Castiel’s grunt as his back hits the ground. Bartholomew straddles him unceremoniously, fingers digging into Castiel’s shoulders, teeth leaving marks as they trail along his skin. He moves against Castiel frantically, roughly, until he feels light spreading through his grace, his veins, his mind, until all of him is awash in it. It leaves him shaking, elated, craving more of this feeling that is so unlike any other.

Bartholomew looks at Castiel then, at the angel who has given him this, who has given him so much.

“I love you,” he whispers.

Bartholomew doesn’t have the skill he needs to read the  _No, you don’t_  in the quirk of Castiel’s lips before he covers them with his own.

—

Bartholomew leads and the other angels follow.

The Castiel that walks into the heaven Bartholomew has crafted on Earth is just as fierce and determined as ever, but he doesn’t miss any details: Castiel’s stolen grace marks him for his brilliance, but not as much as it marks him for his weakness. He thinks this puts Castiel at a disadvantage. He thinks he has the upper hand.

He thinks he’s making Castiel an offer he can’t refuse, and so what Bartholomew feels when Castiel tells him  _No_  is not anger or betrayal or resentment. It is not understanding; it has never been that. It is the pure, unadulterated shock that comes only with the absence of understanding, even now, even as he loosens his tie and clenches his fists, even as he holds himself so tense his hands shake, even as he makes the mistake of labeling it rage and wrath and fury.

Castiel will submit, he thinks. Castiel, who in retrospect was always more a strategist than a warrior. Castiel, who was always a little too human for his own good.

He’s still thinking these things as Castiel sinks a blade into his chest, and his _Why?_ freezes on his lips when he looks into his eyes. Written on Castiel’s face, in his gaze, are all the things Bartholomew never learned to comprehend: sadness, guilt, regret, heartache. Love.

Something deep within Bartholomew shatters as his grace is rent in two and torn from his host, and for a brief moment, there is nothing but light.

And then, there is simply nothing.


End file.
